Xavier Suarez

MIAMI Former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre announced on Thursday he will run for mayor of Miami, a post he held for 12 years in the late 1970s and 1980s. Ferre is the second candidate to announce he is vying for the mayor's seat. The other is another former mayor, Xavier Suarez.

Like most newspapers on Aug. 9, USA Today, the largest paper in the country, ran a story about Fidel Castro falling ill and reaction from the Cuban-American community. Miami-Dade mega developer Sergio Pino was featured in the first three paragraphs of the story. The voice of Cuban-Americans. Pino, it turns out, is a man who is under investigation by a federal grand jury for a possible campaign finance violation. Two years ago, when his daughter was arrested after an incident at a Miami Beach nightclub involving cocaine, but wasn't prosecuted, the Miami New Times ran a story about Pino's cozy ties to Miami-Dade's power elite.

Miami's latest city manager, former Police Chief Donald Warshaw, announced on Wednesday that Major William O'Brien will succeed him as head of the city's police department. The announcement ended three months of suspense within the department as 14 internal candidates jockeyed for the top job. Warshaw was sworn in as city manager on Tuesday. Last year, he had to fight for his job as police chief, under fire from then-Mayor Xavier Suarez. Suarez was forced from office in March after a vote-fraud trial.

Willie Logan and Xavier Suarez did not achieve the political comebacks they wanted Tuesday night. Logan, a former state representative whose once promising political career suffered a series of setbacks, and Suarez, a former Miami mayor, had both hoped to win seats on the 13-member Miami-Dade County Commission. But both lost to an experienced bureaucrat. Barbara Jordan, a former assistant county manager, swept past Logan, taking 61 percent of the vote to fill the District 1 seat of Betty Ferguson, who is retiring.

Saying the position does not offer enough money or power, City Commissioner Joe Carollo said this week he will not run for mayor in the November election. Carollo`s announcement was foreshadowed last month when voters overwhelmingly rejected his call for a strong-mayor form of government. The vote was seen as a political defeat for Carollo. Carollo still has two years remaining as commissioner. He said he did not know whether he could support any of the current mayoral candidates, all of whom he labeled as "liberals."

The electoral fight series between Mayor Joe Carollo and his political enemy, former mayor Xavier Suarez, is set for a rematch, provided the March election just approved by voters is held up by the courts. Suarez, who lost the mayor's job after four months last year after a judge ruled his election was tainted by voter fraud, tossed his hat into the ring again on Wednesday. The former mayor, who also served from 1985 to 1993, announced his candidacy for the newly created job of strong mayor on the steps of City Hall.

Allegations of voter fraud are souring many on mayoral candidate Xavier Suarez, according to a new poll. Twenty percent of voters who supported Suarez last week say they think he was involved with illegal ballots, according to a poll released Tuesday by Rob Schroth, who conducted it for WLTV-Ch. 23. The results come despite indications the candidate didn't know about apparent attempts by his camp to buy absentee ballots. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which arrested a man on Friday on charges of ballot fraud, has said there is no indication Suarez knew of the alleged fraud.

Trial is set for Feb. 9 in former Mayor Joe Carollo's attempt to regain his office. Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wilson approved the date on Thursday in Carollo's lawsuit, which seeks to oust Nov. 13 mayoral victor Xavier Suarez. The lawsuit alleges widespread fraud of absentee ballots. Carollo fell 155 votes short of winning outright on Nov. 4 and was upset by Suarez nine days later in a runoff. Without Suarez' 2-to-1 margin of victory among absentee voters on Nov. 4, Carollo would now be mayor.

State law enforcement agents on Friday arrested a campaign volunteer for mayoral candidate Xavier Suarez after the volunteer allegedly promised to buy absentee votes. Miguel A. Amador, 34, of Miami, was arrested by Florida Department of Law Enforcement special agents and charged with five counts of vote fraud stemming from his promise to an undercover agent that he would provide unspecified "gifts or favors" in exchange for the ballots. The ballots were delivered to the Supervisor of Elections Office on election day and intercepted by authorities, according to FDLE.

`My name is not an easy name to pronounce," says the mayor of Miami, Xavier Suarez. It is pronounced X-Avier. Say the X. Joan Lunden mispronounced it on Good Morning America, when she interviewed him during a really sorry morning in Miami recently. It was similarly butchered by Cable News Network, which, in taking its viewers around the world in 30 minutes on the night of Jan. 16, first took them to the streets of Overtown where the mayor was making a name for himself, even if nobody could pronounce it. Jane and Bryant called and Ted wanted him on Nightline.

It may seem like dM-ij vu to Miami voters today. When they pore over the candidates for mayor, they'll see the names of three men who held the job for 25 of the past 28 years. Only one of the past four mayors to lead the city for almost the past three decades won't be on the ballot -- Stephen P. Clark, who died in 1996. Besides challenges from former mayors Xavier Suarez and Maurice FerrM-i, incumbent Joe Carollo faces a crowded field that also includes a popular city commissioner, two high-profile lawyers, and four lesser-known opponents.

The six-month-old domestic violence case against Miami Mayor Joe Carollo, accused of striking his wife in the head with a teapot, ended quietly in a 30-second court hearing Monday with the charge dropped because he completed anger management counseling. The case arose from an early morning dispute between the spouses in February during which Carollo's wife said she taunted him for not knowing how to boil water to brew tea. Though legally separated at the time, they continued to share their Coconut Grove house.

For an idea of how muddled things are these days at City Hall, where last week the mayor fired the manager and forced the police chief to quit, consider only these latest developments: The city manager, whose job expires at 5 p.m. Sunday, has charged the mayor with violating the city charter by ordering him to fire the police chief, an offense that calls for removal from office. Two former federal prosecutors working pro bono for the mayor have subpoenaed the manager as part of an investigation into his financial affairs.

MIAMI Former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre announced on Thursday he will run for mayor of Miami, a post he held for 12 years in the late 1970s and 1980s. Ferre is the second candidate to announce he is vying for the mayor's seat. The other is another former mayor, Xavier Suarez.

The electoral fight series between Mayor Joe Carollo and his political enemy, former mayor Xavier Suarez, is set for a rematch, provided the March election just approved by voters is held up by the courts. Suarez, who lost the mayor's job after four months last year after a judge ruled his election was tainted by voter fraud, tossed his hat into the ring again on Wednesday. The former mayor, who also served from 1985 to 1993, announced his candidacy for the newly created job of strong mayor on the steps of City Hall.

Miami may need a strong mayor, but it could do without a coup d'etat. It's no secret Mayor Joe Carollo has a hard time keeping friends on the City Commission. Carollo has feuded with commissioners on and off since returning to City Hall in March 1998. The fight started when he fired a popular city manager three times over the commission's objections. His relations with the City Commission have been downhill ever since. Last week, four out of five commissioners approved a plan that could put Carollo out of a job. Miami voters will be asked in November if they want to switch to a strong mayor form of government.

As many as one in five absentee ballots cast in the hotly disputed Miami mayor's race are probably forged, a top handwriting expert says. Of 895 ballots sampled _ most favoring challenger Xavier Suarez _ 197 were probably faked, according Linda Hart, who was hired by the campaign of incumbent Joe Carollo. Hart recently made headlines when she helped determine that a set of contracts and correspondence between John Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe was forged. State investigators seized thousands of ballots Monday after the ballot-fraud arrest of a man who said he was volunteer for challenger Xavier Suarez.

MIAMI -- The race isn`t over yet. Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez and Commissioner Joe Carollo fell short of the votes needed to declare victory on Tuesday. The two incumbents now face a runoff election next week, with Suarez going against his predecessor Maurice Ferre and Carollo taking on Victor DeYurre. However, incumbents in other Dade County races had easy victories. Miami Commissioner J.L. Plummer retained his seat, receiving 24,617 votes to defeat five challengers. In Miami Beach, Mayor Alex Daoud and commissioners William Shockett and Abe Resnick were re-elected by wide margins.

Miami's latest city manager, former Police Chief Donald Warshaw, announced on Wednesday that Major William O'Brien will succeed him as head of the city's police department. The announcement ended three months of suspense within the department as 14 internal candidates jockeyed for the top job. Warshaw was sworn in as city manager on Tuesday. Last year, he had to fight for his job as police chief, under fire from then-Mayor Xavier Suarez. Suarez was forced from office in March after a vote-fraud trial.